It’ll Never Get Off the Ground

THURSDAY PUZZLE — You have to like a puzzle based on one of the world’s most famous comedy routines. “Who’s on First?” was made famous by the legendary comedy team of Abbott and Costello, and for those of you who have never gotten swept up in this bit, it went like this:

Abbott & Costello Who's On FirstCreditCreditVideo by NYYGehrig

Today’s Theme

Randolph Ross offers us a set of three theme entries that are puns based on the surnames of people of note. My favorite of the three is HU LET THE DOGS OUT as an answer to the clue “A former leader of China gave his shar-peis some exercise?”

Tricky Clues

■ 26A: Yes, the answer could be IVANA, but the “Presidential ex” today is MARLA.

■ 40A: Sure, we know Yoko ONO, but once in a while we get a different clue for this common entry, and today it’s Sean Lennon’s middle name. It also legally became John Lennon’s middle name in 1969.

■ 55A: Remember, some clues play with your head by using homophones, and today’s is the word “row.” “One making a row?” looks, on the surface, like we’re supposed to be thinking about a person raising a ruckus, but “row” can also be a garden row, and the answer is HOE.

■ 5D: More wordplay! “Mexican thing?” is not an object that is from Mexico. This clue is asking for you to come up the Mexican Spanish term for the word “thing,” which is COSA.

■ 18D: I don’t know; they might not fly long distances, but I’m pretty sure this EMU got off the ground at least once:

■ 28D: O.K., so here’s the thing about this “Big butte” clue: It has appeared before in the crossword puzzle. And a MESA is, indeed, larger in area than a butte. The phrase “big butt,” for all we know, could be a throwback to the Sir Mix-a-Lot song, “Baby Got Back,” which is not necessarily standards-friendly, but which you can listen to here.

My point is, while this is a clue that might not be on the mature end of the spectrum, some of us in the newsroom are much more mature and would never think of following up on something like that. Best to just ignore it. Or, of course, we could just out-nerd it.

“I like big buttes and I cannot lie,

“Even rappelers can’t deny

“When the strata wear out and the face gets steep

“That’s a climb that will make you cry ...”

(mic drop)

Nerd to your mother, Mr. Ross. Peace out.

Constructor Notes

This theme was inspired by Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First?” routine. The question words who, what, how, why, when, where, which lend themselves to homophones. Since the first three directly correspond to names, I came up with three 15s that could be punned.

Making it a 72 worder with lots of sevens enabled me to have a better fill. I also got to put REBECCA, my daughter’s name in at 1 Across.)